The sun's amber rays are finally cutting through the morning haze, dumping more heat into the already-oppressive sauna of the midwest summer dawn. My boots squish into the film of mud from the tenth-inch rain last night -- just enough to make a mess, but not enough to keep us out of the fields. Beads of water run down my vinyl protective suit, brushed delicately by soybean leaves and tendrils reaching up to my raised forearms as my legs [i]zwip-zwip[/i] through the rows.

I run my gloved hand through the twining plants, admiring their viridian shapes. Precise rows of inch-tall sprouts just months before have erupted into a thick rolling mass for half a mile in every direction. I run a few coiling vines between my fingertips and smile. From a mile off, there comes a barbling roar of a truck on the main road, rushing from A to B.

I pause at a small flash of white a few feet ahead in the row on my left. I step over and bend down to find a spiderweb glistening with dewdrops. I recognize it as an orb-weaver's -- the web has the distinctive thick zig-zag pattern running up and down from the center. There I find a tiny specimen clinging to its lattice of death; a tiny thing, maybe a half inch long. I look a few rows over to the side, where a scrubby grass strip runs astraddle the dirt road; then back to the spider. He won't find much food for him here. Only a few years ago I walked these same rows with some classmates and a hoe in hand, stepping through a web every ten feet it felt like.

I step back to the row to the right, leaving him be, and continue forward. In short order, I reach my destination, and climb seven feet up the ladder and into the cab. The door I shut behind me with a single solid [i]clack[/i] before I sink into the chair. The space stinks of dirt, sweat, and rodent repellant, as always. I look out at the green-on-green, check the shfter, then turn the key one stop; shrill beep and lamp check; second stop; the diesel rumbles to life and the seat buoys to support height, bucking me with a swell of compressed air. The fans whir, air conditioner racing to replace the muggy morning atmosphere with cool and dry -- welcome relief in my already-sweat through clothes beneath the unbreathable suit.

I check the fuel level -- still half-full from last night -- and the water and chemical tank levels -- about quarter and two-thirds, each... enough until midmorning and the arranged truck. I press the hydraulic actuators, and with a faint hiss the long sprayer booms unfold like bat arms behind me. I give one last check at the GPS monitor; back at the booms now fully extended and in position, stretching ninety feet to either side, poised mere inches above the tallest soybean leaves; then don and secure my ventilator mask.

I rev the engine to 1600 RPM, engage guidance, shift to D1, and slap into forward. The machine lurches ahead and I switch the sprayer toggle. I leave the turn rows behind, entering the long, mathematically perfect lines running a half-mile ahead. Behind me, I admire the cloud of my own, settling perfectly down on the plants. Unlike the old days, not a weed, not a pest, not a blight will come to my field, protected by the power of chemistry...

My grin falters. Not spiders, either.